Chapter 21
I stumbled toward the hotel room door. After I went for air, Chris spotted me and ordered a round of shots.
I’d already drowned my feelings in booze once before and wasn’t in the mood to revisit that state of awfulness, but Chris insisted, and luckily, I wasn’t on an empty stomach.
Happy Wyatt wouldn’t refuse. He’d happily join in and keep the party going.
The only problem was I wasn’t Happy Wyatt.
I was sad. Depressed. Wishing I were in a hotel bed with Rose, surrounded by discarded rose petals while she lay in my arms.
I just had to get through tonight and the next two days, then we could go back to Vine Valley and…
and what? I ran a hand over my face. I didn’t want to go back to Vine Valley.
I didn’t want to return to a life that Rose wasn’t in.
Yes, we would still work together and see each other on the vineyard and in town, but that wasn’t my life. My life was Rose.
My head rested against the door as I fumbled with my keycard, more tired than drunk. I swiped it and pulled on the handle, but the light kept flashing red. “Turn green, you stupid thing,” I mumbled as I swiped again.
The door yanked open, and all of my weight careened forward. I fell into the room like an unwanted bag of potatoes being tossed into a dumpster, hitting the ground with a loud thud and an exaggerated umph.
“Oh my God.” Rose dropped to her knees, her hands resting on my body as I attempted to push myself up. “Are you okay?”
“Never better,” I rolled to my back. The feel of the carpet dragging across my face lingered on my forehead.
Her lips pressed into a thin line before little wrinkles appeared on the bridge of her nose. A laugh burst free, and she slapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she said. “Do you hurt?”
Only everywhere. “No.”
“Let’s get you up.” Her hands landed on either side of me, and she helped me to my feet. “There you go.” She wiped my shirt as if it needed fixing. “Good as new.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Let me run you a bath,” she said. “They have lavender bath bombs in there. Must have been part of the romance package. It’ll help calm you down so you can sleep.”
She went to walk away, but I grabbed her hand, halting her in place.
She was one of the few people who knew how much it cost me to be the life of the party.
How being everyone’s fountain of energy physically and mentally drained me until all I could do was soak in a bath of Epsom salt and hope to quiet my brain enough to go to bed.
“What?” she asked when I just stood there staring at her like a dehydrated elephant.
“I don’t want a bath.”
Her brows knit together. “You don’t?”
I shook my head, refusing to let go of her hand as if I did, she might disappear. “I don’t want lavender. Or sleep. Or to calm down.” My throat tightened, the alcohol loosening truths I’d spent weeks locked deep in the back of my mind. “I just… I don’t want to be alone.”
Something softened in her expression. The teasing edges melted away, replaced by that grounding calm she always carried without trying. She squeezed my fingers again.
“You’re not.”
I laughed without humor, unable to regulate my emotions. “Rose, I’m really not okay.”
“I know.” She stepped closer, close enough that I could smell her shampoo, see the faint lines of tear tracks on her cheeks. She’d been crying. While I was getting drunk with my friends, she’d been in here crying. Alone. “You don’t have to be okay with me.”
The room closed in on us, becoming smaller, quieter, like the rest of the world had dimmed its lights for the night to give us space. I leaned my forehead against hers, breathing her in, anchoring myself to the only thing that had ever been solid in my life.
“I keep pretending,” I murmured. “Smiling. Drinking. Being who everyone expects me to be. Acting as if I’m not torn to shreds on the inside.”
“And tonight?” she asked, her hands inching up my chest.
“I’m tired. I don’t want to pretend anymore.”
Her head tilted, beautiful warm brown eyes catching mine. “Then don’t.” Her hands moved up my neck and rested on my jaw. The dim glow from the single table lamp illuminated her like the angel she was.
I don’t know who moved first, but our lips crashed together in a fury of tongue, teeth and desperation. It was like coming home after a hard day. The relief and joy of sitting down in my favorite spot and Rose curling into my side.
But we weren’t home. Our home wasn’t together anymore.
I pulled back, stepping away from the one thing I wanted more than anything in this whole damn world.
Confusion and shock flashed across Rose’s too-perfect features. “I thought that’s what you wanted. It’s what I want.”
My jaw clenched, fingers flexed at my side as if they were trying to revolt against me and grab her again.
“It’s not going to change anything. We’ll just be pretending it will.
But morning will come, and I still won’t be able to give you what you want, and you’ll maybe think that’s okay, but in time, you’ll resent me. ”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Yes. You said it yourself.”
A tear fell from her lid, following the faint line that hadn’t faded. I reached up, swiping it away, my hand lingering near her cheek, practically begging me to reconsider.
“I hate myself.”
“No.” I pulled her into my arms, my hands cupping her head as she cried into my chest. “Don’t hate yourself for admitting what you want. What you need.”
“But what I want and what I need are two totally different things right now.”
I closed my eyes, wishing I could take away her pain. “I hate myself too.”
She drew back, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Why? You didn’t do anything. I did.”
“I should have been able to give you what you want, but I’ve been so scared of losing you.
And now that I know what losing you is, I’m actually even more terrified.
Terrified if I open that door all the way, I won’t survive it if it closes again.
Because every time I imagine saying yes, pretending this is enough, I see the moment it finally breaks you.
And I can’t be the reason you look at me one day and wish you’d chosen differently. ”
“You don’t get to protect me by hurting yourself.”
“Don’t you get it? I’m not just protecting you. I’m being selfish. I’m protecting myself more.”
Her hands cupped my face, her grip hard and determined. “You’re wrong.”
I closed my eyes, resting my hands on hers, linking our fingers together.
I had always been a believer that everything happened for a reason, winding up in the same photography class together, giving up the path I always assumed I would take, and following Rose to Vine Valley.
Everything seemed to work out the way it was supposed to.
But I had no idea why this happened to us. Why I suddenly wasn’t enough.
“I’m the selfish one,” Rose said. “I want my cake, and I want to eat it too.”
My lip quirked up. “I have never understood that saying.”
Rose laughed, and while it was completely inappropriate for the moment, I laughed too. Because for us, it was normal.
“If you have a cake, of course you’re going to eat it.”
“Exactly,” she said, brushing her thumb along my cheek. “Which makes me greedy, I guess. I want you… and I want the life I know I need. And right now, they don’t look the same.”
The laughter faded, leaving something softer behind. Something achingly real.
“I don’t want to resent you,” she continued, her voice barely above a whisper. “And I don’t want to wake up one day wondering when I started shrinking my dreams to make them fit beside yours.”
My chest tightened at her admission. “I never wanted you to shrink. Not for me. Not for anyone.”
“I know.” Her hand rested against my chest, easing the pressure. “That’s why this hurts so much.”
We stood there breathing the same air, caught in the space between what we were and what we couldn’t be. My hands slid down her arms, memorizing her warmth, absorbing it as if I’d need it in preparation for the days ahead.
A loud bang burst through us. “Wyatt!” Cynthia whined from the other side. “Rose. Someone.”
Rose’s eyes slid shut. “I can only imagine,” she said before stepping around me and opening the door.
“I just woke up, and I found Chris passed out between the room and the hallway, and I can’t get him up. I can’t shut the door.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. Why couldn’t the universe let me have five uninterrupted minutes of emotional devastation?
I inhaled deeply, finding the strength to be the Wyatt everyone needed.
I stepped around Rose and into the hallway, immediately taking in the scene.
Chris lay half in, half out the doorway like a fallen tree, one arm flung dramatically over his head, the other clutching what appeared to be room-service fries.
“Ah,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could gather. “The rare hallway otter. Beautiful creature. Known for its inability to locate a bed.”
Cynthia crossed her arms over her chest. “This isn’t funny, Wy.”
“I assure you it is.” I nudged Chris’s foot with my shoe. “He’s breathing. Snoring too. And I’m ninety-five percent sure he’s smiling.”
Chris groaned. “Wyatt?”
“Yeah, bud.” I kneeled beside my fallen comrade.
“I think I fought the carpet. Carpet won.”
“Buddy, you didn’t fight the carpet. You made love to it. Publicly.”
A soft snort caught my attention, and Rose’s shoulders shook as she pressed her lips together.
“Okay,” I said, clapping my hands together. “On three, we lift and pretend this never happened.” I looked toward Cynthia. “Cynthia, grab under the arms. Rose, moral support. I’ll do the heavy lifting because apparently, I’m the designated crisis handler.”
Cynthia sighed. “I’m marrying an idiot.”
“Correct,” I said. “But he’s your idiot. And tomorrow, when he wakes up with regret and shame, we will never let him forget this moment.”
“Hey!” Chris exclaimed. “I thought we were pretending this never happened.”
“Sure thing, buddy. Eat your fries.”
On three, we lifted, or I lifted, nearly giving myself a hernia, and we got Chris into the room. Took a few tries to get him to bed, though.
Rose and I headed back to our room and closed the door behind us, once again leaving the outside world where it belonged.
An awkward silence spread between us, and I hated that more than anything. Silence had never been uncomfortable or awkward between us. It was what we both needed at times, and we could sit in it together, not feeling the need to fill the void. We were content to just be.
Maybe that’s where I went wrong. Maybe she wasn’t happy being content.
Maybe I’d mistaken contentment for enough.
Maybe I could have done more. Could have had more thrilling conversations.
Given her fireworks instead of a steady flame.
I could have put on my Wyatt face for her as I did for everyone else. Maybe—
Her hand pressed against my cheek. “Stop,” she said gently.
“Huh?”
She smiled and traced her finger along my eyebrow. “This eyebrow gets all twisted up when your brain is going a mile a minute. It’s very unattractive.”
“That’s very comforting.”
“And yet, you somehow look less tortured now.”
She knew me. All those times of sitting in silence hadn’t been empty moments; they’d been intentional. She knew how to quiet the inner monologue in my head.
“Come on.” She took my hand and led me to bed. I kicked off my shoes. Her fingers slid under the hem of my shirt and pushed it over my head. “Let’s sleep.”
I undid my belt, and my fingers hovered over the button of my pants.
“We both know you can’t sleep in jeans.” Her eyebrows waggled. “Strip, Wyatt Dawson.”
“I mean, you asked so nicely.” I stepped out of my pants. Rose took my hand and pulled me into bed. She turned on her side, fitting against me like she always did, like muscle memory neither of us had forgotten.
I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close, and grounding myself in her warmth.
I didn’t need answers tonight.
I didn’t need fixing.
I just needed Rose in my arms.